Mayor Don Wesely today presented the Mayor’s Award of Excellence for May to
the Lincoln Police Department (LPD) team of Sergeant Brian Jackson and Officer
Scott Alexander. The monthly award recognizes city employees who consistently
provide exemplary service and work that demonstrates personal commitment to the
city. The award was presented at the beginning of today’s City Council meeting.

Jackson and Alexander, who serve for the LPD Southwest Team, were nominated in
the category of loss prevention by Sergeant Mike Bassett of the LPD Northeast
Team.

Following the initiation of the new State of Nebraska Investigator’s Motor
Vehicle Accident Report in January 2002, LPD officers quickly realized that
the existing, pre-drawn diagrams of high accident intersections would not
transfer onto the new report. Not only would it take more time to simply
complete the increased complexity of the report, but each intersection would
have to be diagramed for each accident worked, thus leading to more downtime
and possible overtime per accident, per officer. With 11,487 accidents worked
in the City of Lincoln in 2001 and an estimated one hour at the scene and one
hour to complete the accident report itself, any savings or reduction of time
spent working the accidents would be greatly needed.

"Officer Scott Alexander and Brian Jackson of the Southwest Team displayed
outstanding teamwork and initiative in embracing the solution to this problem
by coordinating the measuring and diagraming of more than 150 intersections in
the city," wrote Sergeant Bassett in his nomination. "Both Officer Alexander
and Sergeant Jackson possess high computer skills and were able to utilize, at
no cost, software which allowed them to create extremely refined accident
diagrams. These diagrams were then made to fit the new accident report and
were laser printed onto them."

Sergeant Jackson and Officer Alexander spent unpaid off-duty time refining this
process and utilized their own personal computers to accomplish this project.
The pre-drawn accident reports were then labeled and filed for quick access by
fellow officers. The result is a highly refined and professional accident
report that would allow the police department enormous time savings. These
accident reports are viewed and utilized by Federal, State and local-related
agencies, insurance agencies, administrators and citizens.

"The conservative time savings of 10,000 accidents where the diagrams would be
used, at a savings of one-half hour per accident worked, equates to 5,000 hours
of labor saved," said Mayor Wesely. "To take this further, at a duty rate per
officer of $25.00 per hour, this would be a conservative cost-savings estimate
of $125,000 to the City of Lincoln and the Lincoln Police Department."

The other categories in which employees can be nominated are customer relations,
safety and valor. All city employees are eligible for the Mayor’s Award of
Excellence except for elected officials and some managers. Individuals or teams
can be nominated by supervisors, peers, subordinates and the general public.

Nomination forms are available from department heads, employee bulletin boards
or the Personnel Department, which oversees the awards program. All nominations
are reviewed by the Mayor’s Award of Excellence Committee, which includes a
representative with each union and a non-union representative appointed by the
Mayor. Award winners receive a $100 U.S. savings bond, a day off with pay and a
plaque. Monthly winners are eligible to receive the annual award, which comes
with a $500 U.S. savings bond, two days off with pay and a plaque.